Over twenty years ago a woman called Sally Greene sacked me from Richmond Theatre. She had recently been given the place as a trinket by her husband, but was so hands on in her management style that when I, a lowly usher, blew very loudly on a hunting horn that hung on the wall of the stalls bar she leapt into action and dismissed me on the spot. To her credit when, a week or so later, I crept into her office on an afternoon between the matinee and evening performance of some touring tat, all snivelly apologies and sob stories, and asked for my job back she generously let me back in. The world of Loseley ice-cream tubs and tiny over-priced bottles of pineapple juice was mine once more.
I’m sure the lovely Miss Green has had to become harder nosed over the last couple of decades otherwise she wouldn’t have morphed into the theatre-saving, Kevin Bacon-employing, Sharon Osbourne-casting West End lovely that she is today. Last night a group of us went to see the splendid Barb Jungr at Ronnie Scott’s in Soho. Ronnie Scott’s used to possess a shabby and grumpy charm in keeping with its founder. Now, since being bought by the our hero, the place has been somewhat re-jigged; it’s a bit swankier and frankly they’ve decided that every penny invested has to be recouped as quickly as possible. Ideally before Ronnie Scott himself has a chance to perform one full turn in his grave.
However fearlessly you tried, you would be hard pushed to find a more grasping and graceless place to spend an evening.
Firstly, dinner has to be paid for in advance: I presume to avoid the inevitable riot they would have on their hands if they had the cheek to ask for payment after you’ve eaten their disgusting food; then, drinks however have to be settled “in cash” as you go or a credit card left behind the bar in case you rush off into the night with merely having paid a few hundred quid for tickets and food thereby forgetting that was just the start of it. There is no choice about checking in coats and bags but needless to say you are charged for this privilege. Entirely reasonably you are instructed by a cheery gauleiter on the door that phones have to be switched off before you come into the building (and don’t forget “if you are caught taking photographs by any means avaiable to you you will be thrown out immediately”). The phone thing is fine but if your guests are late and you can’t contact them and they can’t contact you it seems a little unfair for the waitress to be so openly peeved when your powers of telepathy fail you to such a degree that you can’t tell her where they are.
Of course when they do turn up the front-of-house staff who showed tremendous efficiency about taking money weeks in advance show less skill in letting people in. Two of our party were quizzed by four separate baby fascists before being allowed to join us. Needless to say once you are all there you are sat at a table which the family in The Borrowers would find a bit of a squeeze.
In case you hadn’t noticed it made me bloody cross.
